Tuesday, December 11, 2012

A Link to the Past

A few years ago I accepted a project on which I worked mostly in my off-time...mostly. It was a project that unexpectedly spanned several years, much to the dismay of the small and dedicated group of people with whom I was working. I was happy with what I was doing, but incredibly embarrassed about the length of time it was taking me to do it. The project was a privately commissioned sculpture of Link (from the Legend of Zelda video game series) that would become a model kit for the group members' personal collections––not to be reproduced or sold.

When I finally completed the sculpture, I sent it to Joachim Höstlöf for clean up, and a few months later, I received my copy of the kit from the project coordinator, Derek Kan. I admired the excellent casting job, then carefully packed the kit pieces away in a box, hoping I'd have the time to put it together and paint it someday.

Derek's kit was completed last December, and he's sharing the process of the sculpt's creation from its humble wire armature beginning, to its beautifully painted completion on his website.

The finished kit, painted by John Allred.

I would not have been able to finish the sculpture without the encouragement of the group, and definitely not without the help of Joachim, the very talented model builder and sculptor who made the beautiful shield and swords and prepared my sculpture for the the molding and casting process.